Machine for dyeing fabrics



MACHINE FOR mama FABRICS Filed June 28, 1958 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 5505mm C. [44501. ER

R O m U E im a Z ,5 r 7 Z3 4 k C June 18, 1940'. F. c. WEDLER MACHINE FOR DYEING FABRICS Filed June 28, 1938 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 INVENTOR 5505mm" 6. [02mm BY w m4 ORNEYS77 .IN l

F. c. WEDLER 2,204,839

MACHINE FOR DYEING FABRICS Filed June 28, 1938 3 Sheets-Sheet 3 ATORNEYS MACHINE EUR DYEING FABRICS Frederick C. Wedler, Easthampton, ss., as-

' (Charlotte, N. 6.,

Carolina signer to Duo-Dyeing chine Gompany,

a corporation of North Application June 28, 1938, Serial No. 216,246

3 Claims.

In my prior Patent No. 2,151,363, dated March 21, 1939, I have described a machine for dyeing fabric in which a pair of tanks are arranged side by side with a frictionally driven wind-up roll located in each of them and a pair of positively driven nip rolls located between them. In the dyeing of fabric by the use of vat colors it is customary to pad or impregnate the fabric with a paste of color in the pigment or insoluble state, and then to immerse the padded fabric in a bath of a reducing chemical which changes the dye into the soluble or leuco state in which it has great afiinity for the fibers. color is fixed by passing the web into a re-oxidizing bath, and is then washed and dried in the usual manner. One important characteristic of the machine thus described was that the wind-up rolls were located at such a level within the tanks as to be completely submerged at all times during the winding, thus among other advantages preventing the effects of oxidation when the selvedges of the wound up fabric are exposed to the air. The prior machine also had the major advantage that the fabric is fed from one tank to the other by the action of the nip rolls, the windup rolls being only frictionally engaged; so that the lineal speed of the fabric is constant throughout the winding or unwinding operation. The nip rolls also possess the advantage that they prevent the web from carrying any substantial amount of liquor from one tank tothe next, thus contaminating the liquor in the second tank. Due to this feature and to the fact that as the web passes from one tank to the other it receives two separate treatments, as is fully pointed out in the patent referred to, the machine is capable of giving a treatment in about. one-half the number of operations that was. required by prior art devices. a

In the preferred use ofthe prior machine for vat colors the padded web'was dried before being run into the reducing bath. This avoided the tendency which the wet pigment would have of washing off the fabric into the reducing bath and consequently building up the concentration of the reduced dye in the bath. Such a concentration resulted in some cases in dyeing the selvedges a deeper shade than the rest of the fabric since they were exposed to the bath the longest time. Very satisfactory results have been obtained by this procedure, but due to the fact that some plants are not equipped to do this drying operation further improvement in the machine has been found to be desirable, in accordance with which the fabric can be dyed either Subsequently the- (CE. era-11st) with or without the drying step after padding in accordance with the equipment found in the establishment in which it is used. At the same time the operational advantages of the prior machine are preserved.

The present invention can be described more adequately by reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

Fig. 1 is a sectional view of embodying the invention;

Fig. 2 is a top plan view of the apparatus, partly broken away to condense the figure;

Fig. 3 is a front view of the device;

Fig. 4 is a section on line 1-6 of Fig. 2;

Fig. 5 is a section on line 5-5 of Fig. 2;

Fig. 6 is an end view of 'the mechanism shown in Fig. 5;

Figs. 7 to 10 are diagrammatic views showing the dyeing of a single web; and

' Figs. 11 to 13 are diagrammatic views showing the dyeing of two webs at the same time.

The device comprises a pair of U-shaped tanks it and ii welded to end pieces 02 which serve as end frames for the machine. The tanks are preferably slightly separated, and are joined together by a member i3 which with the tanks and end pieces forms a padder box the function of which is described below. Extending through the two tanks are shafts ill and respectively, which pass through stufling boxes it and are journaled in bearings ll supported from the end frames by spiders or domes it. The shafts carry wind-up rolls l9 and 20 upon which the material may be wound up alternately.

a dyeing apparatus On one end of each of the shafts M and I5 is a I brake drum 2| (Figs. 5 and 6) around which may be looped a brake strap 22 secured to the frame at 23 and provided with a weight 26. .This brake serves to prevent overrunning' of the shafts when the material is being unwound. The other end of the shaft has fixed to it a friction disk 25. A sprocket 26 is located freely on the shaft between this disk and a second friction disk 21 which is keyed to the shaft at 28. The shaft is carried in an outboard bearing 29, the surface of which is threaded to receive an adjusting wheel 30 which presses against the disk 21 through the interposition of a spring spider 3| and a thrust bearing 32. A look nut 33 holds the adjusting wheel in place. If the sprocket 26 is positively driven the shaft can be made to rotate with any desired torque by varying the setting of the adjusting wheel, 50 that the desired pull on the web being wound up can readily be maintained.

On brackets 35 at each side of the frame is secured a standard 36 having vertical ways 31 in which slide journal boxes 38 for the shafts 39, 40 of nip rolls4l, 42. A cap piece 43 is secured to each standard, and between it and the upper journal box is a spring 44 compressed by a hand screw 45 to vary the pressure between the nip rolls. The shaft 40 of the lower nip roll is driven in any suitable manner, preferably by coupling it directly to a reversible motor 46 provided with the usual control switches which have not been illustrated in the drawings. On this shaft is a gear 41 meshing with two idler gears 48 on stub shafts 49. Rotatable with each of these idlers is a sprocket 56 coupled by a chain 5| to the corresponding sprocket 26. Thus as the nip rolls are operated in either direction the wind-up roll to which the material is being fed is rotated in the proper direction to wind up the fabric and with a torque dependent upon the setting of its friction drive. The hand wheel 30 of the unit from which the material is being unwound is meanwhile backed off so that the wind-up roll is not driven, and the brake 22 is put in place to prevent overrunning. It will be noted that the brake is not relied on for producing tension in the roll being wound up, this being taken care of by the setting of the friction drive.

The mechanism thus far described is in general outline the same as that described in my patent referred to, but is somewhat simpler in design and easier of control. It possesses all the advantages of that prior device and can be used in the same way. The present device has, however, an additional utility where vat colors are being used and it is not desired to dry the web after padding. It is preferable from the standpoint of perfection of results to dry the web and pass it into the reducing bath by winding it while submerged in the bath, for the reasons fully set forth in the prior patent. In many cases, however, keeping down cost is of more importance than securing maximum quality; and by the change to be described it is possible to utilize the machine in whichever way may without the necessity for extensive changes or adjustments. The present device also is of advantage when sulphur or direct colors are being used and it is desired to avoid having the selvedges treated more than the body of the Web, as occurs when the roll is wound while submerged.

For this purpose the standard 35 is provided with guide rolls 55 each so positioned as to receive the web from the nip rolls and to guide it downwardly into one of the tanks. Within the tank are a series of peripherally arranged guide rolls 56 positioned so as to direct the web adjacent the bottom of the tank so as to pass through the liquor 51 which in this case is kept at a level wholly below the level of the material being wound on the roll. It will be apparent that the device can be made to perform the process outlined in the prior patent referred to by merely changing the level of the liquid.

The operation of the device is as follows. If a roll of cloth 59 to be processed is mounted (Fig. 7) with its supporting axle carried by a bracket 60 so that the periphery of the roll is slightly above the top of the upper nip roll, the web can be led around one of the guide rolls 55, around a guide roll 6! located in the padder box 62, and then back between the nip rolls. The web is wound up, as delivered from the nip rolls, upon one of the wind-up rolls, passing around the guide rolls 56 underneath the reducing liquor as it does so. Due to the fact that the speed of be desirable the web is determined by the nip rolls rather than by the wind-up it passes through the bath at a constant rate.

When the supply roll is exhausted the end is passed back through the nip rolls over the guide rolls 55 as shown in Fig. 8, around the guide rolls 56 in the second tank, and is wound by the friction wind-up in the second tank. In this passage the unwound web passes through the bath in the first tank, getting one more treatment; passes through the nip rolls getting rid of most of the now spent liquor it has picked up; and finally passing through the liquor in the second tank. On each passage through the nip rolls (Figs. 8 and 9) the web is thus treated twice as is fully set forth in my patent, the web being finally wound up on the roll 63 as in Fig. 10.

The mechanism is also adaptable for the simultaneous processing of a pair of webs, initially supplied upon a roll 10 (Fig. 11). One web is led around the rolls 55 and 6|, through the nip rolls, over roll II and around rolls 13, while the other is led over roll 'H, over rolls 12 below roll 6| in the padder box, through the nip rolls, over roll 55 and around rolls 56 adjacent the rolls '3. The two webs travel together in their passage through the nip rolls, but with the rolls [2 and 6| spaced as shown (that is, at the corners of an isosceles triangle having an obtuse angle at its vertex) are separated by rolls as they pass through the padder box and they then pass through the tank ll. They are again wound up together upon the roll 20. Subsequent operations, as indicated by Figs. 12 and 13, are carried on with the case of a single web.

The tanks are preferably provided with drainage cocks 15 (Fig. 3), and the padder box is connected by piping 16 with three valves 1! so that the padder box can be drained after the completion of the padding operation or can be coupled to discharge into either of the tanks to return thereto liquor squeezed from the Web by the action of the nip rolls.

What I claim is:

1. In a cloth dyeing machine, a pair of adjacent tanks, a padder box interposed between the tanks, a pair of positively driven nip rolls located above the padder box, means for draining the padder box into either of the tanks or to the outside, a frictionally driven wind-up roll located within each tank, and guide members ositioned one on either side of the nip rolls, one within the padder box, and one or more within each tank and adjacent the bottom thereof.

2. In a cloth dyeing machine, a pair of spaced tanks, a padder box interposed between the tanks with its side walls formed by the outer walls of the tanks, its end walls by members forming the end walls of the tanks and bridging the space between them and its bottom by a horizontal web connecting the sides of the tanks and bridging the space between them, a pair of positively driven nip rolls located above the padder, a frictionally driven wind-up roll located within each tank, and guide members positioned one on either side of the nip rolls, one within the padder box, and one or more within each tank and adjacent the bottom thereof.

3. In a cloth dyeing machine, a pair of adjacent tanks, a padder box interposed between the tanks, a pair of positively driven nip rolls located above the padder box, a pair of guide members on either side of the nip rolls, a set of three guide members within the padder box and arthe two sets of guide :1

two webs as in the (ill ranged so that lines connecting their centers form an isosceles triangle having an obtuse angle at its vertex and its base horizontal, and one or more pairs of guide members within each tank whereby a. pair of webs may be separately guided through the padder box, carried together through the nip rolls, guided separately through liquor in the lower portion of one tank and wound toeosese Y 5% gether on the wind-up roll therein; or may he unwound from one wind-up roll, guided separate- 1y through liquor in the lower portion of the tank, carried together through the nip rolls, guided separately through liquor in the lower portion of the second tank and wound on the wind-up roll therein.

FREDERICK C. WEDLER. 

